


Home

by DustyAttic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Also these are just my personal headcannons so please no discourse, AtLA, F/M, Falling In Love, Hope, I love kataang but you can love whatever you want if you don't love kataang then probably don't read, Kataang - Freeform, Loss, Realizations, This is mostly an introspective on Katara and Aangs feelings for each other, all other characters are pretty minor, scene fill-ins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 13:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17345870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyAttic/pseuds/DustyAttic
Summary: Aang and Katara reflect over the different milestones in their falling in love with each other, from the initial feelings to finally saying it out loud.





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**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is very soft and introspective. I hope you all like it<33

Aang had been in a sweet, young kind of love with Katara from the first time he laid eyes on her. It wasn’t his fault; she was so, so beautiful. And everytime she spoke, he felt himself falling in love all over again, because she was so much more than beautiful. Infinitely more. And for a long time, that was all that mattered. She was all that mattered. Because everything else he had ever loved, besides Appa, was gone. They were gone because of hatred and greed, and because of him. So when the world started feeling too much like a foreign place full of foreign people, Aang would take a deep breath and remember that there was at least one person who had never felt foreign. Who, from the first time he laid eyes on her, had felt like coming home. 

 

It wasn’t until the desert that Katara realized she loved Aang.   
He was a genocide survivor, the child of a people who no longer existed, the last airbender. She knew that he had always been wracked with nightmares about the Air Nomads, and she knew his guilt over running away and his anguish over the loss of his people was devastating, but outwardly he had been able to go on remarkably well. Katara couldn’t imagine it. When she tried to picture waking up one day to a world without Sokka, without her father or Gran Gran, the South Pole an abandoned wasteland and even the North Pole a shell of itself, she was immediately so terrified she felt sick. And, yet, somehow Aang managed to get through everyday with a smile.

Until the desert.

When Appa was stolen, it was as if all of the grief and the rage and the pain that had been trapped inside him at once exploded to the surface; as if the rawest part of him had suddenly been ripped out and exposed to the scorching afternoon sun. And she realized, all at once, how much she loved him. Later on, she had the horrible thought that, even if Aang had died before that point in their journey, she wouldn’t have had the same realization. Because it wasn’t losing him, it was watching him lose himself, that did it. It was watching as the part of him that was her home disappeared. It was watching him enter the Avatar State-- a part of himself he despised for its pure destructive instinct-- out of sheer fury, it was walking to him while everyone else ran away, it was taking him into her arms and feeling him shake with rage, it was feeling his tears run onto her arms around his shoulders. It was then that she knew she loved him. 

 

Aang knew he needed to be with Katara forever when he was with Guru Pathik. Controlling the Avatar state was something he thought he was willing to do anything for. Not so that he could use it to make his violence more effective, as other Avatars had done, and not for power, but so that he would never have to go into a blind ramage of destruction again. But when the Guru told him he would have to let go of Katara, leave behind the earthly connection that was his love for her, he realized he couldn't do it. He couldn’t let her go. She meant more to him than anything in the world, and he had already had to let go of so much in his short, long life. He couldn’t let go of her. Not Katara. 

Or, at least not until he had to do it in order to save her. In those catacombs, surrounded by not only Zuko and Azula, but dozens of Dai Li agents, he realized that they couldn’t win that fight. That he would be captured, finally, but more importantly that she would most likely die. They wouldn’t win, not unless he was able to enter the Avatar State at once. Not unless he was able to let go of her. 

And so he did. Because, as much as he needed her, he loved her more. 

 

Katara realized she needed to be with Aang forever as she watched him die. 

The lightning was brighter than she had ever seen, almost white. And Aang, who had been rising so beautifully only moments before, was now falling to the ground. 

Katara all at once understood the Avatar State, because she felt that same horror and panic and fear and rage well up inside her, and she raised the water around her, more powerful than she had ever been, and she drowned the Dai Li agents, soared over their heads like a deadly and angelic creature so she could reach Aang before he landed. 

Only this time, as she held him, she felt no shaking, no tears but her own. She felt only cold emptiness and everything she’d ever feared realized. She needed him, forever, and now he was gone. 

On Appa’s back, she trembled with a sick sort of pain. When she saw the spirit water resting against her thigh, she lowered her head into her hands. She had almost used it on Zuko, all because of a few pretty lies. But then suddenly she realized that maybe, maybe she could save Aang. So she bended the water into a disk and lowered over the spot where his skin was destroyed and his soul had been snuffed out and it glowed brilliantly, but only for a moment. When the light faded, all was still, and Aang did not move. Toph and Sokka sat thinking their own thoughts, and Katara thought only I cannot survive this greif. 

But then Aang did move. Only slightly, with a light groan. But it was enough. 

 

The first time Aang wanted Katara was during their first day in the Fire Nation, when she changed for the first time since he’d known her out of her traditional blue, exempting the few disguises they’d worn over the past several months. It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful in her Water Tribe clothes-- she was the most beautiful person Aang had ever seen, regardless of what she was wearing. But, after getting struck down by Azula, after waking from his coma, he felt older somehow. And seeing Katara, skin glowing in the red garments, dressed lightly enough for the hot Fire Nation weather, he felt something different than he usually felt when he saw her. It wasn’t butterflies in his stomach but something deeper and hotter. When they danced that evening, and she lowered her eyes at him, he felt it again. It was a new feeling, a feeling of want, a feeling he thought might never be fully satisfied. 

The first time Katara wanted Aang, it was when he was training with Zuko. She was sitting on the back porch of the house they were staying at on Ember Island with Toph and the two boys were practicing forms, shirts off, sweat beading on their foreheads. And Katara noticed all of the sudden that Aang wasn’t the little boy she’d met at the South Pole. He was toned, now, body sculpted around muscle rather than bone. He was taller, too, and his shoulders were no longer narrow. As she took this in, she felt her heartbeat speed up and a blush rise onto her cheeks. Toph snickered beside her. 

“I can feel what you’re thinking about.”

Katara blushed more. “You know, it’s really annoying when you do that,” she said. “And for the record, I’m not thinking about anything.”

“I can’t help it, princess. And, for the record, unless thinking about nothing gets you, ehm, excited, you’re definitely thinking about something. And from what I can feel, there are two shirtless dudes bending it up over there,” Toph said. She leaned back against her elbows. “It’s the same feeling Sokka gets whenever Suki’s around, except he’s much worse at hiding it.”

Katara crossed her arms. “Whatever,” she said. “It’s just… hot out.”

“Sure,” Toph said flatly. 

Katara sat in annoyed silence before it dawned on her what Toph had said before. “Why did you say there are two boys bending over there?” she asked, turning to face the younger girl. 

Toph shrugged. “Hey, I’m not making any assumptions. I know you and Aang have been… I don’t know, doing whatever you’re doing, but Zuko can’t be too hard on the eyes. He’s not too hard on the feet.”

The boys finished their form and walked to the other side of the porch to towel off. Katara watched them go, embarrassed and confused. “You think I have feelings for Zuko?” she asked. 

“No,” Toph said, “I’m just saying I wouldn’t judge you or anything. And I don’t wanna assume you’re feeling anything for anyone.”

Katara sat in silence for a while longer. She thought about what Toph had said-- Zuko wasn’t too hard on the eyes. She knew this was true. When she’d been with him, down in the catacombs, and seen him with his hair grown out, normal clothes on rather than Fire Nation armor, she had been struck by his beauty. And by his words, which she understood by now weren’t lies. But to have feelings for him? To want to be with him? 

Her life had been, until she met Aang, barren and dark and bleak. She tried, as much as she could, to hold onto hope and keep herself cheerful, but it was so hard. And even though, in some ways, everything had been harder since she and Sokka discovered that iceberg, everything had also been filled with so much more light. That’s what she needed-- light. And not the painful lick of a glowing flame, but the soft, warm rays of the sun shining down on her through the wide white sky. And so, as Aang and Zuko walked over to them, and Aang sat beside her, smiling and chatting about the new moves he was learning, sweaty from the workout, tattoos gleaming, she wanted that light. She wanted to let it touch every part of her. 

 

When the comet came, everything froze. There was no room for love, for need, for want. There was only fear and ever lessening time. 

Aang was gone. The last time they had seen him, he was fighting himself over whether or not to end the Fire Lord’s life. To do so would be to go against every fiber of his being. So he went to meditate, and then he was gone. 

Katara knew he would come back, held onto the hope like a pebble in the palm of her hand, held onto it as she watched Zuko battle Azula, held onto as she watched Zuko jump in front of his sister’s lightening, the same lightening that had one struck Aang from the sky, held onto as she fought off flame after flame, as she tried desperately to get an edge on the princess, as she froze the two of them and saw, for the first time, terror in those golden eyes. She held onto the pebble of hope, because even if she died, even if Zuko died, even if none of them lived to see the day, there was still a chance for goodness to win if Aang came back. 

And he did. 

 

After the comet, after the speeches and the coronation and the overwhelming, numbing, freeing shock of the war being over, they were finally back together. Not just Aang and Katara, but the whole team, the whole family-- Toph, Sokka and Suki, Zuko, Iroh, and now Mai, and Appa and Momo. They were together, which had never felt quite so much like a luxury, and which had also never felt quite as peaceful. And so when Katara followed Aang onto the porch and they kissed, really kissed, it was more beautiful than either of them could have imagined. Their last kiss had been so painfully wrong. They were both so scared that the war was going to take what little happiness they’d been able to find in each other and destroy it, but each so different in their reaction. Aang wanting to do what they could while they still had the time, Katara too terrified to even allow herself to fully think about it, let alone act upon it, lest the worst were to occur. Aang kissing her, wrongly, selfishly. Katara feeling frustration and betrayal swell in her heart as she pushed him away. It had been a dark, sour moment between them, but it was still only that-- a moment. And this was a new moment. 

When Katara pulled away from Aang, she noticed the light blush on his cheeks and thought about how many times she’d seen that same sight. He was so beautiful. 

When Katara pulled away from Aang, he marveled at her. She was the love of his life and he knew it. The gentle, furious compassion inside of her was what made him better, stronger. She was so beautiful. 

That evening, they sat side by side in her bedroom in the overly opulent apartment, listening only to the insects and birds outside, along with each other’s breathing. 

“Aang?” Katara said softly, running her thumb over his knuckles, their hands entwined. She felt him turn to look at her and met his eyes. His soft, grey eyes. The war was over. There was no more need for fear. So she leaned their foreheads gently together and said, “I love you.”

Aang felt his heart rise into his throat. They had said it before, many times, but never like this. He pulled gently away from her and looked into her wide blue eyes, his own welling over, and nodded. “I love you, too. So much.”

She kissed him again. 

Finally, finally, they were home.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so of course I headcannon that the beginning of their relationship would be super awkward and cheesy, knowing the two of them, but also they've been through so much and they've been each other's person for so long that idk, I think things would also be very tender and easy. Idk I'm just rambling. Anyway I really hope you enjoyed, please please please leave comments, they encourage me lots! <33
> 
> P.S, I'm thinking of writing some other, more dialogue-heavy one shots about the two of them and their relationship. Would anyone be interested?


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